LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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DISTAFF AND SPINDLE 



By Mary Ashley Townsbnd. 

XARIFFA'S POEMS. 

i2ino. Cloth, ^1.50. 

DOWN THE BAYOU, AND 
OTHER POEMS. 
i2mo. Cloth, Ji.so. 



Distaff and 
Spindle 

Sonnets by 
MaryAshleyTbwnsend 



Philadelphia^ London 

J.D.Lippiticott Company 

189^ 



'■' " ^'''-:'''>v'C. 














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COPYRIGHT, 1895, 



MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND. 



1^- dfd'd 



Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 



TO 

MY THREE DAUGHTERS 

THIS BOOK, 

WITH DEVOTED LOVE, 

IS INSCRIBED. 



npHY spindle and thy distaff ready make, 

And God will send thee flax." The promise read 
So fair, so beautiful to me, I said, 
" Ah, straightway forth my spindle I will take ; 

My distaff shall its idleness forsake; 

My wheel shall sing responsive to my tread, 
And I will spin so fine, so strong a thread 
Fate shall not cut it, nor Time's forces break !" 

Long, long I waited sitting in the light, — 

Looked east, looked west, where day with darkness blends, 
Nor did I once my patient watch relax 

Till cried a voice, " Thou hast not read aright 
The written promise, for God only sends 
To him who, toiling bravely, seeks the flax !" 



II 

/^OME up ! come out ! and hear the blackbirds sing, 
Those poets of an independent school 
Who boast and banter, mimic and befool, 
And everywhere their saucy melody fling. 

With its audacious and delightful ring 

Of lawlessness and carelessness and cool 
Contempt for any rhythm, rhyme, or rule, 
On which their roystering roundelays to string. 

What birds of happiness and health are they I 
Who ever knew a blackbird sick or sad? 
Hark to their jokes and jeers and jaunty calls. 

While chronically wretched all the day, 
A feathered Jacques, melancholy mad. 
The ring-dove mourns upon the garden walls. 



Ill 

"P\EAR Love, thou art the fine resihent steel 
Wrought from the ruder iron of my days ; 
Thou'rt mine, yet not mine; when the armorer lays 
The meliorate metal 'gainst his emery-wheel 

And gives the burnished sword his final seal. 
No impress of the dull mine's rugged maze 
The weapon's splendors, glittering with rays 
Of running light and pliant power, reveal : 

Yet that Toledo blade, whate'er its fame, 

Must keep below the radiance of its sheen 
Some semblance of the shape it did resign, 

Some vestige of the source from which it came ; 
So, darling, come what may our ways between, 
Thy life must ever bear its trace of mine I 



IV 

XX/'ITH brine upon its breath the soft breeze floats 
Up from the gulf, across the planted lands 
Where rice crops ripen and the young cane stands, 

Its soft susurrus blending with the notes 

That pour from myriads of piping throats 

Whose minstrelsy the ear of night commands, 
While move to deeper seas and wider strands 

The silent river and its silent boats. 

From hedge and grove and tall, deep-bosomed trees 
The dulcet wind's delicious odors comb ; 

While stars infinituple over these 

In upper silences have made their home, 

And seem like multitudes of golden bees 

Swarming in some vast temple's concave dome. 



A POET'S soul has sung its way to God ; 

Has loosed its luminous wings from earthly thongs, 
And soared to join the imperishable throngs 
Whose feet the immaculate valleys long have trod. 

For him, the recompense ; for us, the rod ; 
And we to whom regretfulness belongs 
Crown our dead singer with his own sweet songs. 
And roof his grave with love's remembering sod. 

But yesterday, a beacon on the height ; 

To-day, a splendor that has passed us by, — 
So, one by one into the morning light, 

Whilst yet late watchers gaze upon the sky 
And wonder what the heavens prophesy, 
The shining stars pass silently from sight ! 



VI 

T CANNOT pray that prayer I Nay, not for me 
Implore deliverance from sudden death ; 
What is there in the stoppage of the breath 
To fright men so"? Oh, that my fate may be 

To lose in one pulse-beat mortality; 

To be the fervent lightning's sudden sheath, 
The point where the tornado centereth. 
The spark extinguished instantaneously ! 

I would not, anguish-led, existence quit. 

Nor halting go, like some scared, whimpering hound 
With faltering steps toward the echoless verge ; 

Nay ! I would fain with one immediate bound 
The dark profound leap into, and so merge 
At once the finite in the infinite. 



VII 

"pJOW cool the garden is ! the morning sky- 
Along the east a luminous promise prints, 
And plain and peak take on responsive tints. 
A wet branch strokes my hair as I pass by; 

Across the lawns awakened peacocks cry; 

The scented winds of hiding pinks give hints; 
Across the hills the earliest sunbeam glints. 
And early crows to planted cornfields fly. 

A full rose stares me out of countenance, 

The shamefaced fuchsia hangs her bashful head; 
A prankish blackbird hops across my path 

With wings alert, and many a furtive glance, 
Then, plunging in a dewy pansy bed. 
In gold and purple takes his morning bath. 



VIII 

T WALKED among the by-ways of my thought, 
And lo I three ghosts went ever on before 
With traihng robes that swept their footsteps o'er, 
And windy hair with minded odors fraught. 

Their shadowy shapes seemed all of silence wrought. 
While each of my own self some semblance wore, 
And one, with pitiless lips, named nevermore, 
In blown black mantle folds my heartstrings caught. 

This trinity abideth with us all. 

Ourselves that haunt ourselves, whate'er betide. 
With what we were and are and hope to be ; 

Where'er we work their noiseless fingers fall. 
Whene'er we rest they halt them us beside. 
Three regnant forces of our destiny. 



IX 

TF you in all their gloriousness would see 

The morning-glories, come and take my hand, 
And I will show you where they drown the land 
In floods of color varied sumptuously. 

The hills and hollows home their revelry. 

The umber brooks by joyous sprays are spanned, 
And dumb, denying rocks transfigured stand 
Beneath their bloomy prodigality. 

Only sweet, simple, country blossoms they; 

Yet if their grouping and their wealth of hue 
Were lifted, living, to St. Peter's dome, 

Such rare design, such exquisite array. 

Would pass the fairest heights art ever knew. 
Eclipse even Angelo's fame in famous Rome ! 



'T' HERE'S something in this sweet October time, 
When over all things hangs a mellowing haze, 
When flies the late bird in uncertain ways, 
And stridulous locusts to the tree-tops climb. 

With songs that have no music and no rhyme, — 

Something, I know not what, in these dear days, 
A balmy peace upon my spirit lays 
And sets my life to harmonies sublime. 

Perhaps it is that in October, Love, 

When all the ripened richness of the year 
Was resting on the land and on the sea. 

And Autumn stars were watching from above. 
Thy soul of beauty shone into my sphere 
To gladden all the after-time for me ! 



XI 

\X/'OULD I might keep thee ever from the storm 
And threat of storm ; from peril of the brink 
And fall therefrom ; shield thee from every link 
Of joy with joylessness ; from all earth's swarm 

Of mockeries, merciless and multiform ; 

Make from thy pathway every danger shrink, 
Give thy sweet lips but happy cups to drink. 
My own hopes pledge to keep thine bright and warm. 

Alas ! not mine to share thy peace nor strife ; 

To me 'tis not vouchsafed to give nor guard; 
But all my soul with love for thee is rife, 

And so my night is beautifully starred, 

For it is written on the heights of life 
Love is its own exceeding great reward ! 



XII 

As by the instrument she took her place, 

The expectant people, breathing sigh nor word, 
Sat hushed, while o'er the waiting ivory stirred 
Her supple hands with their suggestive grace. 

With sweet notes they began to interlace. 

And then with lofty strains their skill to gird, 
Then loftier still, till all the echoes heard 
Entrancing harmonies float into space. 

She paused, and gayly trifled with the keys 
Until they laughed in wild delirium, 
Then, with rebuking fingers, from their glees 

She led them one by one till all grew dumb. 
And music seemed to sink upon its knees, 
A slave her touch could quicken or benumb. 



XIII 

T IKE some young bride, with tear-drops on her lashes, 
Just turned from where the girlhood-path has ceased. 
Comes morning, all her loveliest charms increased; 
One star like some rare wedding jewel flashes 

Above the brow it brightens and abashes, 

And all of earth, the greatest and the least. 

Wait to receive Her, coming from the East, 

Whose feet not yet have touched life's dust and ashes ! 

Exultantly the lush plains lift their voices. 
Melodiously the crystal brook-notes call 
Back to the mill-wheel's reawakened hum, 

While every sunbeam listens and rejoices, 
As harmonies of hills, woods, waters, all 
Are blent in one epithalamium. 



XIV 

'npWAS but a bamboo hut with thatch of palm. 
Yet well we knew it sheltered its full share 
Of human life, and courage, and despair, 
Through all that night of tropic dew and balm ! 

Whilst sang the eternal stars their infinite psalm 
Above the lowly roof, we saw the flare 
Of one frail candle in the door- way there 
Where watched the watchers humble, reverent, calm. 

None sobbed nor spoke, but waited as to hear 
A coming silence stop beside the bed. 
And touch its pillow with a sign devout; 

At last, as drew the moonless morning near. 

By wails of women we knew all, and said, 
" They watch no more, and lo ! the light is out." 



XV 

"jV/TOVED by invisible power, the clouds upsoar 

Like metals hued gold, bronze, white, silver-gray, 

And lift a vast aerial array 

Of moisture, fire, and wind the hot hills o'er : 

The forests stir to primal depths once more. 
And vivid lightnings flash about the day 
Like knives by Indian jugglers thrown at play, 
While near and nearer threatening thunders roar. 

Now, motion, tumult, and a flooding rain 

That blots the world out for a noisy while. 
Then, sudden sunshine and the storm has ceased ; 

But with the heights the luminous mists remain. 

And 'neath their haze the mountains stand and smile. 
All veiled like beauties of the haremed East. 



XVI 

T SOMETIMES wish that I might love thee less, 
And yet that were to wish the day less fair. 
The night less starry, all the summer air 
Crossed with a gelid vein of wintriness: 

To wish no winds my senses would caress 

With fragrance of fresh lips, and blowing hair. 
And garments of the breeze a tangled share, 
Life stripped of all that sweetens life's success ! 

Then let me love I glad that my heart has cried 
From its supremest depths for love again ; 
Cried from divinest dreams life ever stirred : 

To love is best, albeit with love denied, 

For love rewards, exalts, even by the pain 
That proves it is unrecognized, unheard. 



XVII 

\X7'HENE'ER the calm lids of your eyes you lift, 
The subtlest definitions of each look 
I search as might some scholar search a book 
Who hopes, from countless pages of word-drift. 

One flawless, sparkling jewel thought to sift. 

But now your lingering glance my pulses shook; 
Alas ! too soon my features it forsook, 
And lost forever seemed a longed-for gift. 

All lips declare you love me save your own — 
Oh, how a joy deferred resembles sorrow. 
And what a thorny blossom is Delay ! 

Be now thy voice with tender secrets sown, 
An ever-fleeing prophet is To-morrow ; 
Then if you love me tell me. Love, to-day. 



XVIII 

r^ LEAN-LIPPED, clean-souled, and clean of heart, she came 
Across the world and stood beside my hearth. 
And taught me how the gladness of the earth 
Gains newer grace and bears a loftier name 

When shared with sorrow, suffering, and shame. 
She taught me error is not always sin. 
That Evil often lets an Angel in 
To write Forgiveness by the side of Blame. 

I see her now, — the fair and fearless face. 

Her hopeful smile, the flash of lucent hair. 
Her simple gown the blue of olden delf, — 

As, mantled in the beauty of her grace. 

She sought out guilt, and anguish, and despair. 
And lived her creed — "for others, not for self" 



XIX 

"P\ECEMBER bells are pealing in yon tower, 

With glad tongues telling to the world the glory 
Of that sweet, tender, and divinest story 
Of Joseph, Mary, and the strange sky-flower 

The wise men called a star, and, hour by hour, 
Did trust its guidance strange and transitory. 
Which led them unto Bethlehem's gate- way hoary, — 
Its humble manger's transcendental dower ! 

Nations have come and passed away since then, 
And many a star has risen above the earth 
The maze and marvel of profoundest sages; 

But ne'er has one like that been seen of men 

Which rose and stood above the Christ-child's birth. 
And Christmas gave unto rejoicing ages. 



XX 

T MISS thee so ! so much of life and light 

Goes when thou goest, passes through the door 
Which thou dost shut behind thee ; comes no more 
While thy dear presence blesses not my sight. 

Thy absence makes my day a starless night, 

Plants thick my path with rue and hellebore, 
And leaves my heart robbed, weary, sick, and sore 
With loss thy touch, thine only, can requite ! 

Of what is wrought this power that thralls us so. 
Which off and on our peace puts like a glove. 
Lifts to the stars, or leaves us clods o'erthrown*? 

Lets slave and tyrant in the same heart grow, 
Mad misers makes us of another's love. 
And madder spendthrifts ever of our own"? 



XXI 

A SULLEN west, low clouds with peaks afire, 
Their dull, gray bases banked against a sky 
Which fluctuating half tints glorify ; 
Across the swamps the dusk is stealing nigher, 

From down the gulf the wind is rising higher, 
A silent bird is flying slowly by, 
A single star is shining out on high. 
And one late sunbeam stays with yonder spire. 

The ground and grass take on a gradual change, 
No crickets chirp, no nimble lizards run. 
Day sets its music to the twilight's rhyme ; 

While lowing cattle through the sedge-grass range 
And cross the shallow bayou one by one, 
With brimming udders for the milking-time. 



XXII 

''T^WAS in the sonnet season of my days 

That every wing-beat of a passing thought 
My happy heart to happier dreams up-caught, 
Which bore me past all need of worldly praise. 

I knew no tyranny of rhythmic ways; 

More poetry, less prosody, was wrought 
With all I said or sung, attained or taught; 
Nor did I dream of thorns in poet's bays! 

I have learned better now, so men declare ; 

I own I have learned more ; I know to-day 
How 'neath the singer's song the heart can ache, 

And know to yearn for when I did not care 

What chanced my heart, and less what men might say, 
But sung my sonnets just for singing's sake ! 



XXIII 

A SCENT of guava-blossoms and the smell 
Of bruised grass beneath the tamarind-trees; 
The hurried humming of belated bees 
With pollen-laden thighs ; far birds that tell 

With faint, last notes of night's approaching spell, 
While smoke of supper-fires the low sun sees 
Creep through the roofs of palm, and on the breeze 
Floats forth the message of the evening bell. 

Our footsteps pause, we look toward the west. 

And from my heart throbs out one fervent prayer: 
Oh, love ! Oh, silence ! ever to be thus ; 

A silence full of love and love its best. 

Till in our evening years we two shall share 
Together, side by side, life's Angelus ! 



XXIV 

r\ NORTHERN sky, to thee I turn my face! 

Brave Arctic sky, whence storms come wild and cold, 

I love thee that thou art so fierce and bold; 
And thou, O South sky, with thy languid grace 

And fervid heart, Sappho of skies, I trace 

Thy spell within my soul's remotest hold; 
While, Eastern sky, thy fair, far dawns enfold 

One I would cross the wide world to embrace ! 

But when I stand where yonder palm-tree grows. 
And one I watch for cometh from the east. 

And sunset paints the azure of the west; 
While there the moon her slim white sickle shows. 

And comes the night-wind chanting like a priest, 
I know then which of all skies I love best ! 



XXV 

A LITTLE while now and the sun will rise, 
So whispers leaf to leaf along the lanes ; 
Softly the sibilations cross the plains, 
And slowly opes the fair East her gray eyes. 

She sends their luminous splendor up the skies 

Which yet the starry breath of midnight stains, 
While steal along earth's multifarious veins 
Joys fresh as primal joys of Paradise. 

The spider spreads her white veils on the grass. 
The opulent ant and beetle are astir, 
The busy vines display their night-grown links, 

Young blossoms sigh and waken as I pass. 
And in my path a grave philosopher. 
An old toad, gravely sits and winks and winks. 



XXVI 

T^HOU askest, Love, how dear thou art to me ! 
A Hfetime of sweet answers that includes, 
And needs must silence fill with speechful moods. 
Turn life's pale prose to radiant poetry, 

Part all the seals of love's sweet secrecy 

And give it tongue to thrill all solitudes ; 
Of language search the unmarred magnitudes 
For words full charged enough to answer thee ! 

Thou'rt that to which my pride is proud to bow ; 
That which my much-blest life holds blessedest. 
Of my soul's self the dearer counterpart ; 

Dearest of all things dear to me art thou. 

Of love's divinest height the supreme crest, — 
Yet I can never say how dear thou art I 



XXVII 

T MET thee face to face one bitter night, 

Death ! beside the low couch of a child : 
Without, the world was terrible, and wild 
With storm and desolation and the blight 

Of darkness; while within there was the sight 
Of thee, the ever-dreaded and reviled. 

1 shuddered, but my darling looked and smiled 

As one who knew thee, then grew still and white J 
I, trembling there, beheld thy firm hand trace 
A language on those dead, beloved lips 
More eloquent than all their years of breath. 
I wept, but understood ! I kissed the face 

Whose light no future shadow could eclipse. 
And henceforth knew no dread of thee, O Death ! 



XXVIII 

A STRAIN of sumptuous silence running through 
Sweet gamuts of suggestion ; lucent gloom 
Through subtile fragrance sifted fills a room 
Enriched by treasures of old worlds and new 

Carved ivory, bronzes, tapestries a few, 

In yonder antique vase a rose in bloom ; 
Nothing too much of artist, sculptor, loom, 
And yet enough each higher sense to woo. 

Amid encompassment so faultless, fair, 

The heart unsatisfied still waits to hear 
An eager footstep iterately fall; 

A soft, descending rustle on the stair. 

An opening door, a Presence drawing near, — 
Where all is lovely, loveliest of all ! 



XXIX 

A LONE, in foreign lands, I watched the east 
Within the darkness quickening into day ; 
A chain of grim, converging mountains lay 
On either hand, each like some mighty beast 

With head outstretched, as if its throat to feast 

In far, deep gulfs of sky whence, swift and gray, 
Like startled ships, night's shadows sailed away 
As widening rays of dawn's slow lamp increased. 

Like to some battled plain where valor bleeds, 

The horizon glowed one deep, ensanguined hue. 
Through which I saw a growing radiance shine 

As shines, through death, the glory of great deeds ; 
Then slowly blent the crimson with the blue. 
And one star shone there like a seal divine. 



XXX 

\X^HAT if I wrote a thought upon the sand 
And traced therein of all my life its best, — 
Its dearest dream, its loftiest behest, 
Its holiest grief, its bravest self-command. 

The truths toward which its sternest paths are planned. 
The joy of duty which its way has blessed, 
The noblest hope which has my soul caressed, — 
And then should rise the waters o'er the land ! 

If they washed out my words, and I had died. 
Would all be lost of my life here below, — 
Its struggles, loves, and laws'? Would all be spread 

In infinite nothingness more amplified, 

Naught else*? Would no beloved one ever know. 
Not even when the sea gave up its dead"? 



XXXI 

/^H, let me love thee! Why wouldst cheat my heart 
Of its most sacred hope, its purest bliss? 
Why wouldst thou dash down dark despair's abyss 
A love to thee and me life's signal part"? 

Thou shalt not bruise it, nor its trueness thwart! 
A love of stature mighty as is this 
O'ertops thy fault, absolves it with a kiss; 
In what thou canst be pardons what thou art ! 

As the still lichen on the stubborn stone 
Eats steadily into the rugged rock, 
Until what ages could not move at last, 

By its calm steadfastness, is overthrown. 

So shall my strong, persistent love unlock 
At last the gyves that hold thee to thy past ! 



XXXII 

'HP IS scarcely ours, this which we call to-day, 
Ere it is yesterday, or, to our sorrow, 
Has flown into the bosom of to-morrow; 
And when, amidst to-morrow's pain or play, 

We cry, " Ah, here is that which stole away !" 

It is not there, for Time made haste to borrow 
Its swiftness for his strong bow's ready arrow. 
And shot it far ere one could say him nay ! 

But if 'tis true that where the far bird flies 
All sounds resolve them into only one. 
Which ever through the purple zenith strays, 

Mayhap somewhere in one blent future lies, 
On spatial altitudes below the sun, 
Our lost to-morrows — yesterdays — to-days! 



XXXIII 

'T'HERE was a shore on which the sea forgot 
A shell which he had fondly wooed so long 
With surging sigh and vibratory song, 
Repeated in love's passionate polyglot 

Through billow-whirl and under-ocean grot, 
Her life became one echo of the throng 
Of his sweet vows, and her unrighted wrong 
The future music of her desolate lot. 

What was the shell to him who from the strand 
First lifted it, — a secret left: unsolved, — 
A mystic book with one self-singing page*? 

Or did he hold in his unconscious hand 

The prototype from which has been evolved 
The phonograph, that marvel of our age? 



XXXIV 

CWEET as the odor of crushed honey-bees 

Caught homing from the rifled buckwheat-beds; 
Sweet as the scent the summer clover sheds 
When evening dew its subtlest fragrance frees; 

And sweet as spice-isle winds o'er southern seas, 

Comes now the breath of winter woods, that weds 
The Holly to the Christmas-time, and threads 
Our lives with something tenderer than all these ! 

The chime of great, glad bells in lofty towers, 
The sound of voices full of love and mirth, 
The song triumphant which the temple thrills; 

The chastening thought, which comes 'mid feasts and flowers. 
Of hapless homes ungladdened on the earth, 
And little Christmas stockings no one fills ! 



XXXV 

A BOVE the world throbs deep the sky of noon, — 
All Sevres never matched its matchless blue; 
No cloud appears with mediative hue, 
And, like a dome from azure crystal hewn. 

The heavens hang hot with sunshine of late June, 
Which searches out each hiding drop of dew 
And slays the rose which, but this morning new. 
Came down the day to meet to-night's young moon. 

I creep into a shadowy, bookish room 

Where silent artists, scholars, poets be. 

And, far from noonday's fret and feverish flame, 

I revel in the soul-illumined gloom ; 
Stand close to Dante's immortality. 
And in my hand hold all of Shakespeare's fame ! 



XXXVI 

A WINTER sparrow with its summer song 
Flits in, flits out, beneath my sombre eaves, 
And chirping, flitting back and forth, she weaves 
Her way of sweet contentment all day long; 

Accepts what comes, seeks out no chancing wrong, 

Pines not for measures missed nor garnered sheaves. 
Flies never far, sings never much, nor grieves 
That skylark notes do not her own throat throng. 

I toss my half-read book upon its shelf; 

Something my discontented soul commands 
To search the greatness of God's little things; 

From them to learn a lesson for itself. 
Even as a tiny sparrow understands 
The limits of its songs and of its wings. 



XXXVII 

T OVE has a language into all things thrown, 
The very silence is its subtile tongue, 
The hollow blossoms have its secrets rung. 
Winds been its messengers, and planets shown 

Its thoughts the way through labyrinths unknown ; 
While fragrance, that mute melody, has sung 
Its magic eloquence since earth was young 
In accents understood by love alone. 

Ay, love, true love, is ever many-tongued. 

And love is not blind, but is Argus-eyed, — 
Sees all, says all, and understandeth signs ; 

Unwearied climbs, though it be million-runged, 
Hope's ladder, and, a thousand times denied, 
Across denial its reward divines. 



XXXVIII 

TV/TY neighbor likes the lowing of his herds; 
To shut it out I draw my window down, 
And read my latest volume from the town ; 
My poem to my neighbor is but words; 

My neighbor's feast to me is whey and curds; 
His hands applaud the tinselled circus clown, 
In Wagner's genius I my senses drown. 
And each his life with fitting cincture girds. 

Thus neighbored, yet so very far asunder, 
Contentedly we take divided ways ; 
Why should I term his stature lack of growth? 

He does not ask my lightning for his thunder, 
I do not take my measure by his praise. 
And so the world is wide enough for both. 



XXXIX 

T^HE robin builds again in last year's tree, 

And last year's stalk is blossoming this year's rose; 
For Spring's young breast again the wild flower blows, 
Back to the summer comes the loyal bee. 

The moon returns unto the calling sea, 

On waiting hills again the sunrise glows, 
And, from the sweet land of the long ago's. 
Imperishable memory comes to me. 

Back to my heart she brings a by-gone bliss, 

The quenchless light of one long-vanished hour. 
The musk and myrtle of life's tangled skein ; 

Words unforgot, — one ever-living kiss, 

Vows locked by silence in her donjon tower, — 
Love's measureless capacity for pain ! 



XL 

npHE hand that knocks but once at each man's life 
Against my neighbor's swiftly knocked last night; 
When straightway went the tenant forth from sight, 
And that strong shape which yesterday was rife 

With hope and pride, and love of child and wife, 
Lay into strange and frigid silence grown, 
Like some fair temple robbed and overthrown. 
Its altar-lamps all broken in the strife. 

The echoes wait in vain for song or psalm. 

Or sob, or sigh, or voice of plaint or prayer. 
In those abandoned shrines, those aisles untrod; 

Yet something in the deep, inscrutable calm. 
An incontestable handwriting there, 
Avouches, lo ! this is the house of God ! 



XLI 

"Y\7^HAT is it that, in looking back on years 

That from our lives have slipped, we most regret? 

Is it the consciousness that we forget 

Sweet love, warm vows, and consecrated tears'? 

Is it that in fulfilment disappears 

The joy we covet? is it the bitter debt 
Our youth has paid success? or is it yet 
The path that vanishes, — the point that nears? 

Ah, none of these, — nothing which did exist; 

No struggle won, no arch of triumph broken. 
Calls forth our bitterest grief at fate's decree ; 

But, oh, the goal unreached, — dear lips unkissed. 

The friend unmet, — the one word left unspoken. 
That which has not been and can never be I 



XLII 

'T'HE cypress swamp around me wraps its spell, 

With hushing sounds in moss-hung branches there, 
Like congregations rustling down to prayer. 
While Solitude, like some unsounded bell. 

Hangs full of secrets that it cannot tell, 
And leafy litanies on the humid air 
Intone themselves, and on the tree-trunks bare 
The scarlet lichen writes her rubrics well. 

The cypress-knees take on them marvellous shapes 
Of pygmy nuns, gnomes, goblins, witches, fays. 
The vigorous vine the withered gum-tree drapes. 

Across the oozy ground the rabbit plays. 
The moccasin to jungle depths escapes. 
And through the gloom the wild deer shyly gaze. 



XLIII 

'X*HE summer leans upon the passing year, 

Leans heavily, and all her steps are slow. 

Like one who, going, lingers, loath to go ; 
The wan leaves flock about her, sallow, sear. 

Like ancient gossips crowding round a bier; 

The scythes no more the scented meadows mow. 
The sluggish bayous falter in their flow. 

And winds say "dying" in a whisper drear. 

Come, thou who with me liked the summer well. 
Together let us kiss her finger-tips 

And bind with fond good-byes her lifeless brows ; 
Lay last year's love across her silent lips 

Above the secrets she will never tell. 
And on her bosom cross two broken vows ! 



XLIV 

/^H, Sorrow, Sorrow! give not back to me 

My dead, my lost beloved; from that dear sake 
Surcease of calm, grave-rest, I would not take; 
Across the heights and depths of love I see 

Where life is sweet, where better not to be. 

And am content to know the willows shake 
Their silence over sleep they cannot break. 
O'er precious pulses quelled eternally. 

But, Sorrow, Sorrow ! oh, to me once more 

Give back the courage loving much did bring! 
Despoiled of that I cannot lift aright 

The pinions of my life again to soar; 

Even as one feather stolen from its wing 
Spoils all the gamut of an eagle's flight. 



XLV 

Am I so selfish that I narrow all 

This world's immensity, — its boundless scheme 
Of sea and land, and sky, and star and stream, 
Its suns unknown, its forces that appall, 

Its labors, triumphs, promises that call 

The heedful soul to altitudes supreme, — 
All to the bounds of my own petty dream? 
Am I so vain, so shallow, and so small? 

I cry peccavi, and I pray my prayer ; 

But, though I gaze where star and planet be, 
My rising tear-drops blemish all the blue; 

My lips are bitter with the taste of care, 

My soul is chilled with wintry prophecy; 
I reach for roses, — gather only rue ! 



XLVI 

1J"0W grows a poem in a poet's heart, — 

From sudden light flashed on some hidden thought. 
From knowledge never learned and never taught, 
Dear memories snatched from pleasures that depart? 

From tears that sympathies unlooked for start. 

From dreams within the net of slumber caught, 
From joys within sweet waking moments wrought, 
From depths ungauged by science or by art*? 

Do poems grow from sorrows that bereave, 

From steps that stopped before they touched the goal. 
From days of luxury, or from nights of toil? 

Ask how the maple learns its tints to weave, 
The wintry blast to sing its song of dole. 
The flowers to find their stature in the soil ! 



XLVII 

''X'lS night! like daisies planted on a grave 

The white stars bloom the dark, still city o'er, — 
So still 'twould seem quick hearts beat here no more 
That ever suffered, pitied, smiled, forgave ; 

That lips of all the loving, great, and brave, 

With those which sinned, and shamed the shape they wore. 
Had kissed the shadow of that ultimate shore 
Whose Stygian sands no echo ever gave. 

The wind, cold, bleak, and wintry from the west. 
Comes searching all the lonesome city streets 
Like one who seeks a face he cannot find; 

My thoughts, for one who loved me first and best. 
Seek all the world, which all their search defeats. 
Oh, life so wintry, oh, love so unkind ! 



XLVIII 

npO every life there comes a time supreme; 

One day, one night, one morning, or one noon. 

One freighted hour, one moment opportune, 

One rift through which sublime fulfilments gleam ; 

One time when fate goes tiding with the stream. 

One Once in balance 'twixt Too Late, Too Soon, 
And ready for the passing instant's boon 
That shall in favor tip the wavering beam. 

Ah ! happy he who, knowing how to wait, 

Knows also how to watch and how to stand 
On life's broad deck alert, and at the prow, 

To seize the happy moment big with fate 
From opportunity's extended hand 
When the great clock of Destiny strikes Now ! 



XLIX 

npHEY spread upon her pillow poppy flowers 

And whisper to the sick girl, " Sleep, child, sleep ;" 
They give her sprays of ripened hops to keep, 
And banish sunlight with its amber showers. 

They set the sliding sands to tell the hours ; 

Then, as on tiptoe from the room they creep, 

Past all their watch and ward, escaping leap 

Her thoughts and fly beyond all prisoning powers. 

How should they know, whose hearts have never lain 
Down by dead dreams in valleys of regret. 
What sorceries memory weaves upon her loom? 

O life ! whatever be thy joy or pain, 
'Tis better to remember than forget, 
To gather rosemary than lotus bloom. 



An air of expectation all the day 

Has seemed the meadows, streams, and woods to fill 
The willows pullulate, all seem athrill 
With joys such as in human bosoms play 

When some one dear to them is on the way ; 
A new, soft verdure steals to yon brown hill, 
Upon the terrace smiles a daffodil, 
And whispers, " Hither thou art hasting, May ! 

Thy happy hands hold scarfs of rosy mist. 

Which round thy graceful shoulders blow and whirl, 
And, flying from pursuing April showers, 

Green garlands hanging ftom each rounded wrist, 
Thou'rt like some beautiful young dancing-girl 
At whose bewitching feet the world throws flowers !" 



LI 

T ET us beware to sip the cup of praise ; 

Below the jewelled brim that wins our eyes 

An arch, intoxicating poison lies 

Which our best selves unto our worst betrays. 
It cheats with dreams, with dangerous pause delays, 

Holds up to view the hope that it denies. 

Steals from ambition strength to win the prize, 

And with a base contentment drugs our days. 
Better to gnaw the bitter roots of blame, 

Conscious the bread we ask for is a stone ; 

Better our parched and thirsting lips be cooled 
By acrid trials filtered through some aim 

Thrust full of noble effort overthrown, 

Than feed on flattery and be filled and fooled ! 



LII 

A SUDDEN curtain has dropped down between 
My life and me. I seem to stand outside 
My own existence, hungering and denied 
And dumb ; love, hope, and peace serene. 

Met in the world, assume an altered mien. 

Or pass me by in paths grown strangely wide 

For meeting, and to loving unallied, 

And one low mound for me bounds Ufe's demesne ! 

Yet wherefore deem thee dead, since thou dost speak. 
Since thou dost move in all that is my best. 
In every worthy effort that I make? 

Thou livest in all for others that I seek. 

In each ennobling and fulfilled behest, — 
And life itself is lived for thy dear sake ! 



LIII 

npHE sea tells something, but it tells not all 
That rests within its bosom broad and deep ; 
The psalming winds that o'er the ocean sweep 

From compass point to compass point may call, 
Nor half their music unto earth let fall; 
In far, ethereal spheres night knows to keep 
Fair stars whose rays to mortals never creep. 

And day uncounted secrets holds in thrall. 
He that is strong is stronger if he wear 
Something of self beyond all human clasp, — 

An inner self, behind unlifted folds 

Of life, which men can touch not nor lay bare; 
Thus great in what he gives the world to grasp. 

Is greater still in that which he withholds. 



LIV 

\X7'E live too far from others and too near 

Ourselves, and knit into our scheme of days 
Strange weeds blown to us from unworthy ways; 
We tread the circuit of a narrow sphere 

And call it broad, and, having ears to hear. 
Unwisely hearken ; having eyes, we gaze 
Beyond truth's trueness to its paraphrase. 
Past rough sincereness toward fair insincere. 

So, touch we hands, not hearts, — touch lips, not souls ; 
Give, and care not what each to each denies, 
Speak from the verge of our distinctive spheres. 

Know and cross not the gulf between that rolls. 
And, looking straight into each other's eyes. 
See not their anguish nor their unshed tears ! 



LV 

TF I could paint, I would my palette set 
To-day with all the fairest, freshest hues 
That many-mooded nature loves to use 

To tint the early turf and violet. 

And myrtle-buds, and mint and mignonette, 
And stems, leaves, tendrils that the forests choose 
As witching, beautiful, bewildering clues 

To Spring's ideal rose-written alphabet ! 

A radiant sky, and yet of tender tone ; 

Lands all aflush with new things gladly growing. 

The softened light of early afternoon ; 

Blown blossoms over country by-ways strown, 
A brook that flows, nor cares where it is flowing. 

And all these signs translated meaning — June ! 



LVI 

T'VE seen the fresh leaves come to yonder tree 
Like young things to a mother year by year, 
Have seen them live their lives till, dull and sear, 
Their purpose of existence seemed to be 

To fade, and flutter uncomplainingly 

To commonplace extinction, their career 
'Mid drift to end and desolation drear 
Of wintry paths in dull obscurity. 

Last night a frost came, and that tree to-day 
Is glorious in tints of red and gold 
Of which the midnight made it sudden heir. 

So have I known a marvellous gift to stay 
Hid in some human nature shy and cold 
Till one unlooked-for touch revealed it there ! 



LVII 

/^OME forth, Beloved ! the hour has grown so still 
That I can almost hear the violets blow, 
And hear the sap stir in the palms below 
The lawn, and, listening, seem to hear that thrill 

The lily feels when, bending down to fill 

From urns of dusk her petals with the slow, 
Sweet-odored dews that out of darkness grow, 
One ardent star comes try sting o'er the hill ! 

I believe that I could hear if even a thought. 

Or yearning glance, of thine this way should pass. 
Or if thy white soul beckoned me apart; 

Love has a sense so delicately wrought 

That it could hear thy shadow cross the grass, 
Or thy chill silence drifting toward my heart ! 



LVIII 

A TANGLE of petunias and sweet-peas, 

And pinks and pansies nodding in the wind, 
A virgin in a niche of stone enshrined. 
Low whispers in the swaying pepper-trees; 

A distant bell that swings with cumbrous ease, 

A muttering beggar, old, and bent, and blind, 

A vine about a broken column twined. 

And well-sweeps creaking in the passing breeze. 

The bats, those bandits of the twilight skies. 

Rush forth their frightened victims to pursue. 
While past alfalfa-fields green, deep, and cool, 

With dusky face tinged by the sunset dyes. 

An Indian woman, dressed in red and blue, 
Her donkey follows to the roadside pool. 



LIX 

'T'HAT I should come and knock at any door 
And thou within, just on the other side, 
Yet answering not, though long I here abide 
And call through tears, and with a heart so sore I 

I yearn to hear upon the inner floor 

A step that hastes to throw the portal wide 
And give the kiss that never was denied — 
Oh, can it be that these are mine no more*? 

Yet, hollow tomb, so cold, so dark, so murk, 

Thy gloomy doors are shut and barred in vain 
On those dear pulses in thy dungeons stopped; 

My hands from those will lift their yielded work, 

My strength will forge for them the unfinished chain, 
My life knit up the stitches they have dropped ! 



LX 

npHE dawn is filled with earth's awakenings, — 
A river's song along the ferned ravine, 
The humming of an insect host unseen. 
The whir and whistle of invisible wings. 

A mood of melody pervades all things; 

The very clouds have music in their mien, 
And I can almost believe I hear the green 
Grass breathe beneath my light heart while it sings. 

Ah ! unto those who love her Nature shows 
Domains she grants not to indifferent eyes, 
Vast realms that make kings' crowns seem dowerless; 

Here leaps the quickened thought, — the dwarfed soul grows, 
Each sense unto some higher sense replies, — 
Yet this is what men say is idleness ! 



LXI 

^^UT of its heart the lowly blossom spills 
A precious fragrance at our passing feet, 
In country gardens is the bird's note sweet, 
And fair the drooping heads of daffodils. 

A generous beauty all the valley fills ; 

But we, with heedless haste, rush on to meet 
A further joy, a music more complete. 
Beyond, beyond, beyond upon the hills ! 

Oh, for the grace life's present joy to see. 

To meet half-way the heart that toward us draws, 
To listen to the lips that nearest speak ; 

To help the hurt that is at hand, nor be 

Like those that ever fail to find because 
They seek too much, and go too far to seek ! 



LXII 

"(^H, that the weary days I once blasphemed 

As thick with gloom could but return to me. 
Filled fiill with all I then called misery, 
By not a ray of happiness redeemed ! 

Oh, black to-day I if all which darkest streamed 
O'er that past time but now my lot could be. 
It were sweet life, content, joy, ecstasy 
Beside this direful hour with anguish seamed !" 

A wretched man so muttered as he went, 

Convinced his past the present had betrayed, 
Making his griefs, by grieving, more expand. 

Some turned aside to shun his discontent. 

Some sneered, some fled, some heard him unafraid. 
While I clutched tight the joy I had in hand ! 



LXIII 

'T'HE pillaging wind steals from yon evening shore, 
Across the yellow river steals to me, — 
Odorous invisibility 
With precious and impalpable freight in store. 

It comes from vast plantations famed of yore, 
So flowered and so fruited, field and tree, 
That Amalthaea's horn for breeze and bee 
Is there filled ever full and running o'er. 

Below the silver blue of upper skies 

The sunset's crimson mandate is unrolled, 
And lo ! is wrought a miracle divine ; 

Where 'neath the reddened west the river lies, 
Even as at Cana's marriage-feast of old. 
The waiting water is turned into wine! 



LXIV 

pjE was a potentate but yesterday — 

Coffined in precious wood, in raiment fine, 
Within a carven church, before a shrine. 
Pathetically calm he slept to-day. 

Touched by the hand that none can disobey, 
In fi-ozen silence, helplessly supine, 
He lay, and all his past years made no sign 
Of powers used to bless or to betray ! 

A mitred bishop benediction gave; 

The organ through the vast cathedral throbbed. 
And censers swung beside the dead in state. 

My hot tears fell for one denied that nave: 

An unknown woman who, unheeded, sobbed 
With hidden face outside the church-yard gate ! 



LXV 

'T'HE contradictions of existence make 

A curious study hard to understand. 

Where is the palmist who shall read the hand 

Of humankind with falsehood nor mistake? 
Its occult signs all given laws forsake, — 

Brief days, with great deeds nobly proved or planned ; 

Long life all wasted twisting ropes of sand ; 

Pure dreams that in sin's odious arms awake ! 
One world which sits contented, stringing beads. 

And calls this " work," and deems the right so won 

To eat white bread, on silken beds to sleep. 
One world which sobs denied and cruel needs, 

Whose sore feet stumble in the race half run, 

Whose bleeding hands, too tired, can sow nor reap ! 



LXVI 

''T^IS true, one half of woman's life is hope 

And one half resignation. Between there lies 
Anguish of broken dreams, — doubt, dire surprise, 
And then is born the strength with all to cope. 

Unconsciously sublime, life's shadowed slope 

She braves; the knowledge in her patient eyes 
Of all that love bestows and love denies, 
As writ in every woman's horoscope ! 

She lives, her heart-beats given to others' needs. 
Her hands, to lift for others on the way 
The burdens which their weariness forsook. 

She dies, an uncrowned doer of great deeds. 

Remembered*? Yes, as is for one brief day 
The rose one leaves in some forgotten book. 



LXVII 

A^ MAN I know whose visions all take shape 
And hue of doubts, and discontents, and fears; 
His chief enjoyment is to enjoy his tears. 
And even his hopes despair's grim features ape. 

His wine is always made of bitter grape. 

Misanthropy's chill hand bemoulds his years. 
Suspicion's frost his rose of friendship sears, 
His book of life is always bound in crape ! 

For lives so narrow, and for eyes so blind, 
No brooks melodious make the solitudes. 
The sedulous moss carves not her curious cup; 

Skies smile not, clouds no rainy hair unbind. 

By hanging gardens of no star-world broods 
The Niobe night whose tears morn gathers up. 



LXVIII 

npHE moon comes red like some great bowl of blood 
Whose sanguine store uprises to the brim, 
Yet spills no drop on the horizon's rim ; 
Far up, the mystic constellations stud 

The heavens where transpicuous vapors scud 
Before the upper winds, like phantoms dim 
Whose spectral robes across the azure skim 
Toward the milky-way's sidereal flood. 

How new, how old ! 'Twas thus when Egypt's floor 
Of sand the shadow of her Sphinx first smote; 
When o'er the earliest sea the first ship flew — 

So all we know, learn, live, has been before. 

Oh, sage of old, wisely your slim reed wrote, 
" Under the sun is nothing that is new !" 



LXIX 

pjER face is like the beauty of a rose 

Which brightly blossoms by September's gate, 
When tender touches of denial weight 
The aster's dream, the lily's white repose; 

Her goodness, like the winter violet, grows 

Along the paths which else were desolate; 
Her voice, articulate fragrance, can create 
Love on the very stalk where hatred grows. 

There dwells a happy spirit in her eyes. 

And hurts in other hearts she lessens half 
By courage which her brave example teaches. 

She deems life given not for sobs nor sighs, 
And there is more religion in her laugh 
Than many a sermon that the preacher preaches. 



